Many Bloody Returns

Many Bloody Returns (2007) edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner

I pre-ordered this, not realizing it was in hardback. As much as I love anthologies, I’m not that excited about hardback books–especially anthologies where I don’t know all the authors or the quality of the stories.

Many Bloody Returns pretty much tells you the focus of the stories: vampires and birthdays. In some cases it’s the vampire who is having a birthday, in other cases…not.

Luckily, I wasn’t too disappointed with my purchase. There were several stories by authors I like and charaters whose books I’m reading, namely, Charlaine Harris, PN Elrod, Jim Butcher, and Tanya Huff. Unsurprisingly, some those were also some of the stories I enjoyed most, as they built upon characters with which I am already familiar.

Of those, my two favorite stories were Jim Butcher’s “It’s My Birthday Too” and P.N. Elrod’s “Grave-Robbed”.

Jim Butcher wrote a very solid Harry Dresden story. Although there isn’t a lot of development of Harry’s character, what I did like was how this story added another dimension of Harry’s relationships with Molly (his apprentice) and Thomas (his half-brother). The continued building of those relationships was really the strong point of this story for me. One of the things that has annoyed me about Harry is his inability to turn to his friends for help, so I really liked seeing him working with others.

I also really enjoyed the P.N. Elrod story. Although I’ve found the Jack Flemming stories to have their ups and downs, I enjoy reading about Jack, and enjoy the time period in which his stories are written. Strangely, this was hardly a period piece in comparison to the other Jack Flemming stories. Instead, the focus is on the mystery/problem, and how Jack solves that mystery. And I quite liked Jack’s solution to the problem at hand.

Another story I particularly liked as Jeanne C. Stein’ story “The Witch and the Wicked”. Although I did guess part of where the story was going, I enjoyed Sophie’s musings and thoughts about her future, and her interactions with the vampires. But I mostly liked how the story went in a direction I was not at all expecting.

And I thought Elaine Viets’ story, “Vampire Hours” was wonderful. Although being in a vampire collection, it was pretty obvious who/what the people Katherine was watching were, it didn’t particularly distract from the story, since the focus was upon Katherine and her chase for eternal youth. The story felt a bit like First Wives Club crossed with a vampire tale. Fun and amusing, although I am not sure how I felt about the fact that Katherine was so focused upon her body and her beauty as her main assets.

But I have to admit that there were stories that I found disappointing. As much as I enjoy Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, this story didn’t seem to add much, and in some ways Sookie felt to me as if she was acting slightly out of character. nothing I could put my finger on, but the story just felt a bit off to me.

I also didn’t care too much for Rachel Caine’s story “The First Day of the Rest of Your Life” because I felt like I was missing something–I was never quite certain what was happening or why, and why Eve really had no clue as to what she was going to do. Instead of interesting, I found her somewhat annoying. Which was somewhat surprising to me, since I enjoyed Rachel Caine’s first Weather Warden book.

Otherwise, this was a pretty good collection of stories. I probably would have preferred the book in paperback, but over all I enjoyed it.
Rating:7/10

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